rouli

rouli

For his graduation project for the HKU (Utrecht School of the Arts), Cor Baauw created a really compelling vision of the augmented future where virtual pets are common and one can change reality with few restrictions.
Obviously, we are not likely to see this vision come to life in the next ten years (and possibly not in our lifetime), but it's a nice reminder of how cool augmented reality can be once we overcome the limitations of the current hardware and algorithms.

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Brother's AiRScouter see-through head mounted display is coming out this fall? One thing's for sure, they Brother stresses the AR use cases of that device.

The future of firefighting may be augmented according to Tanagram. As Toby points out, a firefighter wants 100% reliability which doesn't go well with computer vision dependence on heuristic algorithms.

Not too happy with the shape of your nose? Researchers at the University of London are working on an AR mirror that will let you tweak it (and other features) in real time.

In the last week Bruce Sterling has postedseveraldemovideos of AR projects done by Art Center College of Design (Pasadena) students. The class, which is sponsored by Layar (very wise move!) and guided by Sterling, resulted with some interesting ideas, from AR religion to Bitcoin treasure hunt, but I liked most Dobu Dobu, an "augmented reality app to create love, companionship and friendship through adoption of virtual pets".

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Well, I guess the title says it all. Leaf++ is the brain child of Italian artist Salvatore Iaconesi that couples together visual search and social networks to augment (you guessed it) leaves. A user can leave (no pun intended) a message on a leaf, to be seen later by other users scanning the same leaf type.

Watching the above video, it seems that some people get high on leaves.

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A few months ago Ralph Osterhout had a chance to present his vision for the future of HUDs at the e.g. conference. If you had to some his vision into one word it would be amazing. The list of features is endless, from night vision to high definition 3d display. Even more amazing, Osterhout claims that a militarized version of this HUD would be available this summer, and a consumer product will come "sooner than what you may think".

Osterhout is far from a quack, but I'll believe it when I see it. In the meantime, if you consider yourself a fan of AR, you must watch the following talk (and share what you think about it in the comments!)

rouli

I watched this talk by Kevin Slavin at Mobile Monday Amsterdam three times already (which explains why it took me so long to post it here), and I still can't understand what are his issues with augmented reality. One claim is obvious, and I tend to agree, that immersion is neither necessary nor sufficient for an exciting experience. His other claims may be confusing (or misdirected), yet Slavin is a master of weaving together anecdotes from history and his own personal life into a compelling story, which makes the following video interesting to watch.

Android Beta version is coming in a few weeks. iPhone and Android full versions are coming by the end of Q3.

Seems like a "basic" (nothing is basic in this field) image recognition and tracking. Image recognition is done on the device, so augmentation should be relatively snappy.

They are going to charge money for this, unless your layer gets less than 1000 matches per month, or if it's a non-profit, artistic or educational layer and the powers to be like it enough. Pricing seems really fair to me.

Hi There!

We, at Augmented Times, believe that augmented reality (AR) is the next big paradigm shift. Connecting the world wide web with the physical world and the many objects, places and humans it contains, AR is both a disruptive technology and an exciting vision of the future.

This blog's goal is to document AR taking over our lives, but it needs your help. Have an augmented reality related news or story? Published an interesting paper about AR? Have something to say about this site or the AR community in genereal?Tell us about it, at rouli.net ~at~ gmail.com